Tonight we take a look at Atlanta,
where shit's getting crazy.
I'm talking Waffle House crazy.
REPORTER 1: Atlanta's busy downtown descended
into chaos over the weekend.
Hundreds of protesters marched in the streets
in the wake of the death of a 26-year-old
environmental activist.
The activist was killed on Wednesday
as officers cleared protesters from the site of a planned
police training center.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): Police training center?
But these guys are trained, right?
This isn't an armed militia of interns.
Back before things got this bad, I went to Atlanta
and met with local activist Jasmine Burnett.
The Atlanta Police Foundation is building
a massive urban warfare training
facility with bomb testings, tear gas
explosions, a shooting range.
Didn't people march to defund the police?
It look like they refunded the police?
Yes, they did.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): Activists
have dubbed this development Cop City,
an 85-acre, $90 million complex,
including a shooting range, burn buildings,
and a mock city that includes apartments,
a school, even a bar.
ROY WOOD, JR.: So this is basically
like Six Flags for the police.
Yes, it's a playground.
You can't call it a playground.
- Mm-hmm. - Oh, wait.
You right. This is literally a playground.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): But I
had a dream about how they could make this project
more appealing to activists.
We name it after Martin Luther King.
Doesn't matter.
Tyler Perry presents the training facility.
The name doesn't change the impact.
I can tell you don't watch no Tyler Perry.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): Activists
like Jasmine have been campaigning against Cop
City using legal avenues.
But others have been like, screw it.
I'm going full Mad Max.
REPORTER 2: Protesters threw at least one Molotov cocktail.
REPORTER 3: Protesters set fire to a construction
worker's truck.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): Activists calling themselves
Forest Defenders have been occupying
the woods around the Cop City building site for over a year.
It's an effort to protect the surrounding Black community
from increased flooding and other environmental impacts
of this development.
So against my better judgment, I headed it
to one of their encampments.
Barricades, burnt-out, truck pretty normal place.
OK.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): I met with Sabo and Green Grass,
two Forest Defenders who were going to give
me a tour of the-- wait. Wait, wait.
Who the hell is this?
[siren]
Oh, I think that's the police rolling up.
Yeah, because we're trying to obstruct their project.
Green Grass. Just took off.
Green Grass don't [bleep] with the police.
I understand. It's a Black thing.
Yeah, let's go this way.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): I'd rather
take my chance with the Georgia Ewoks than the cops.
So I followed Green Grass and Sabo into the woods.
So I just got here, and the police
just ran us into the forest.
Is that normal?
Yes.
Yeah.
They come Monday through Friday just to terrorize us
like police do.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): Some of the Forest
Defenders have a $25,000 bounty on their head.
So they mask up to disguise their identity.
And some are even taking a cue from old-school T-Pain.
(SINGING) This is a plantation, historically,
and an ex-prison farm.
I gotta be honest.
I wish I had an Auto-Tune I could speak in
because you just made prison farm industrial complex
sounds so melodic.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): They led me to the living room,
one of their encampments with kind
of a A24 horror film vibe.
Press in the living room!
Yeah, don't-- don't just say press.
You got to say Roy Wood, Jr., who
you know from Def Comedy Jam.
HBO.
And he's one of the best--
Def Comedy Jam.
--comedians to do it.
Oh, no, no.
This living room is used as our community function.
Hey, bingo.
Y'all got bingo night?
Yeah.
Where's the Molotov cocktail station?
Where's the gun training station?
The majority of us just want to live
in peace with each other.
We work here on ourselves, and we do yoga.
And we meditate, get massages here.
ROY WOOD, JR.: Wait.
Y'all get massages?
You do yoga, meditate, stretch, and deal with your inner--
like therapy.
Yeah.
Has that had any type of effect
on stopping Cop City from coming?
Yeah, their construction only gotten like two
days in the past year.
And one of the primary construction firms
dropped out.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): According to leaked documents,
the Cop City building plan is months behind schedule.
This crunchy granola shit seems to be working.
But Forest Defenders say law enforcement has stepped
up raids on their camps.
So they built barricades, and they avoid police
by living in treehouses, like some sort of Antifa
Swiss Family Robinson.
ROY WOOD, JR.: OK, so that's about 50 feet in the air.
Yeah.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): Tree sitters may drop things.
Mardi Gras beads?
You just said that they drop paper bags of shit.
Well, if the cops are in here,
and you can't come down from the tree--
It's a lot of different ways to protest.
Why is your way live in the tree house 80 feet up
and drop shit in paper bag?
We have to stop Cop City because they're
practicing to murder us.
They are practicing the bomb us.
They're practicing how to come into our homes
more effectively while we're asleep.
The alternative is staying here, shitting in a bag
sometimes, or lay down and watch the world burn.
Anyone up there?
Please, don't drop shit on us.
This is my only suit.
ROY WOOD, JR. (VOICEOVER): Since my visit to the Atlanta
forest, police raids and arrests
have only been more frequent, culminating
in last week's shooting.
Police don't usually target protesters
like this in America.
What if they go after celebrity journalists next?
Good thing I got rid of my phone in the woods
so the police can't track me.
Oh, shit.
How am I supposed to get an Uber out of here?
[cheering]